How Is Your Worksite Wellness Program Addressing The Biopsychosocial Nature Of Health? (Are You?)

Health is a complex concept. And you do want to understand how to best address it, correct? I have previously written that health and wellness are two clearly different concepts. As a result, I see the worksite wellness programs of today as not really being wellness programs at all, but really being employee health status management programs. If you accept this premise,

this means that as a worksite wellness professional you should have a clear understanding about the nature of health. Do you think you do? Health, like wellness, can have many different definitions. Again, like wellness, there appears to be agreement around the idea that health is a complex concept which has several different determinants. The determinants of health can be classified into several broad categories: policymaking, social factors, health services, individual behavior and biology and genetics. Health is often referred to as being a complex biopsychosocial concept.

Breaking the term biopsychosocial down into its component parts suggests the term consists of three major components: biological, psychological and social. So how do these component parts each contribute to an individual’s health?